The Origins of Violent Islamism. Can the political Islam be seen as a cause for violent religious extremism in the Middle East?

Seminar paper from the year 2015 in the subject Politics - International Politics - Region: Near East, Near Orient, grade: 1,0, University of Windsor (Faculty of History), course: Introduction to the Arab culture, language: English, abstract: Violent religious extremism is to be found nearly everywhere in human history. Yet, it seems today, as if the Arab world - and most lately Syria - would be the ‘hub’ of religiously motivated terrorist activities. But where do these movements come from? What are their roots? The key assumption of this paper is, that the origin of religious extremism (but not necessarily religious extremism itself) is to seek in the rise of political Islam in the middle of the 20th century. Therefore, the central question to answering the questions above is: How could a constructive force, like the political Islam, lay the foundations for such a destructive force as is Islamist terrorism?